


An Impossible Task

by Imrryr



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, F/F, Femslash, Fluff and Angst, Liara POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imrryr/pseuds/Imrryr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Crucible's activation, the Normandy was left heavily damaged, and no one knows what’s become of Shepard.  Femshep/Liara.  Post-destroy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My take on what could have happened immediately after Shepard activated the Crucible, as told from Liara's perspective (with a few small changes to canon). This was originally intended to be a one-shot, but it ended up going on for a bit too long. Oops.  
> Rated T – mostly for angst and mentions of death. Also, there is fluff.

September 25th, 2186.  London, EU.

...

"Shepard!"

"You’ve got to get out of here."

The world was literally falling apart before her eyes.  She struggled to make herself heard over the roar of the Normandy’s engines, the firing of Reaper weapons, and the continuous rumble of advancing tanks and collapsing buildings.  "I’m all right, Shepard."  ' _Please_ ,' her eyes said.  ' _Take me with you.'_

But Shepard was not to be dissuaded.  “Don’t argue with me, Liara.”

Garrus gripped her side more firmly as her knees began to buckle.  Pain shot up her arm, and her throat burned with the heavy smoke in the air.  “You’re not leaving me behind.”  They were so close.  She had to be there; to be with Shepard until the very end.  She’d promised.

Even under that oppressive, smoke-filled sky, Shepard’s eyes were so vibrant; the only specks of green left in that blasted wasteland.  A strong hand cupped Liara’s cheek, the rough texture of her gloves brushing tenderly against blue skin.    “No matter what happens.  You mean everything to me, Liara.  You always will.”

This couldn’t be it.  She tried to reach out, but the searing pain only made her tears flow more freely.  “Shepard – I… I am yours.”

The Commander shuddered even as she smiled, her own eyes filling with tears, when another loud crash had her looking over her shoulder.  Through the falling ash, Harbinger could be seen on the other side of the beam, knocking over a five-hundred year old row of houses as though they were made of straw, repositioning itself on its massive legs to get a better line of sight on the advancing Alliance forces.

And at the moment, Liara knew it was all over.

Shepard yelled for them to get going as she ran back down the ramp to join the other soldiers in their mad dash for the Citadel.

Liara was left shaking in Garrus’ grasp while he pulled her back against her will, and as the shuttle bay door began to close, the last thing she saw was a brilliant flash of red light.  An ear-splitting blast, like the sound of the planet being wrenched apart, rocked the ship as it took to the skies, but it died away until all that could be heard was the hum of the engines and the labored breathing of her crewmates.

She fell to her knees, hands covering her face.  " _Shepard_."

…

“Doctor T’Soni?”

She had imagined her final moments with Shepard ending in a hundred different ways, many of them tragic, but never like this.

“Doctor?”

Breathing in sharply, Liara awoke to find herself sprawled face down on a cold metal floor.  For a second she thought she must still be in London, that maybe an explosion had rendered her deaf and blind, but the air was clear, if stale, and a distinctive computerized voice was continuing to calmly repeat her name.

She blinked and realized that what at first appeared to be twisted concrete and metal was actually just her office, bathed in a faint blue light.  Immediately, she tried to push herself up as the memories came flooding back.  Despite the pain in her arm, Liara had only given Doctor Chakwas a few moments to patch her up before limping to her office to be amongst her monitors and data-streams, trying to bolster the lines around London, calling in supply drops to where they were most needed. 

Finally getting to one knee, she hissed.  Even lifting her arm enough to scan her surroundings with her omni-tool proved to be too much.  It hardly mattered.  All of the electronic devices in the room were dead anyway: the monitors, the lights, everything.  Only her VI seemed to still be functional.  It was hovering steadily just over her head, casting the faintest of shadows with its own light.

“Glyph,” she choked out, clinging to the seat of her chair to keep from losing her balance, “Status report.”

If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve described Glyph’s answering tone as gentle, like it was trying to ease her distress for some reason.  “The Normandy sustained heavy damage after the activation of the Crucible, Doctor.  EDI does not answer my inquiries.  Artificial gravity and life-support are now functioning on battery power.  All attempts to raise the crew have failed.”

She tried to move her left leg again and this time only barely stopped herself from crying out.  Her ankle was definitely twisted.  She couldn't remember when that had happened.  “Sensors?”

“Main sensors are offline.  Visual scans indicate several vessels nearby.”

Liara cradled her aching head for a moment before finally daring to look out the window.  Glyph moved from her line of sight and dimmed itself to a ghostly blue, giving her eyes a chance to adjust. 

A graveyard, that’s what she was looking at.  Barely visible against the blackness of space lay the hulks of what might have been a dozen or even a hundred vessels; the volus dreadnought Kwunu with its distinctive green radiator fins, a turian frigate, a geth cruiser, and an asari battlecruiser Liara didn’t recognize.  The latter ship was rotating slowly on its axis, and she swallowed when the far side finally came into view.  The starboard fin was completely missing, leaving some fifteen decks exposed to space.   She turned away.  Not even the aftermath of the Battle for the Citadel had looked so horrible.

Then she scanned the scene again.  No Reapers.  Not a single one.  Had Shepard done it?  Was it all truly over?  “Glyph.  Send out a distress signal.”

“I’m afraid all communications are down, Doctor.”

“What about the ship’s transponder?”

“That is also offline.” 

She rubbed her temple.  “What is our _exact_ location?”

“The Normandy is currently on a sub-orbital trajectory.  Estimated speed: eight point two kilometers-per-second.  Altitude, nine-hundred kilometers.”

Her heart skipped a beat.  “ _What_?”

“I estimate the Normandy will enter Earth’s atmosphere in approximately thirty-two minutes.”

This was even more serious than she’d thought.  “Is anyone piloting the ship?”

“Unknown, Doctor.”

“We have to get to the bridge.”

Ignoring the pain, she forced herself off the floor, and using her chair as a prop, pushed herself in the direction of her bed.   There was an emergency power conduit along the wall.  If she could get her terminals running, she might be able to scan the interior of the ship for life signs.  “Do any other sections of the ship still have power?”

“Doctor, you require medical attention.”

Something warm and wet trickled down the side of her head, splattering on the floor.  When she rubbed at it her hand came back purple.  Blood.  She reached for the nightstand, pulling out a pack of medi-gel.

The instant she applied it, the burning sensation in her extremities receded.  She tried her foot again, but knew better than to put too much weight on it.  It felt lifeless.  Definitely better, but it would need to be treated properly - preferably by a real doctor, not one who only held a doctorate in Prothean archaeology.

Still, it would do.  Liara bent over to examine the conduit running along the floor.  No lights.  No power.  She did find a helmet though, and quickly slipped it over head, locking it in place with a reassuring click.  Who knew what she’d find on the other side of the door?

With slightly more dignity, she limped towards the exit.  As expected, the door didn't open automatically.  The controls weren’t even glowing red to indicate a lock or malfunction.

Calming herself, Liara stood up straight and surrounded herself in a mass effect field, holding out a hand and touching the surface of the door.  Glyph retreated when she sent the power out through her hands and into the seal between the door elements.  All she needed was a little leverage -

With a bang, the door shot open, sparks flittering down from above.  The sight unveiled made the bile rise in her throat.  Glyph’s light illuminated an unrecognizable mass of folded metal and broken glass in every direction.  Pipes and hoses hung down from the ceiling, and the floor was wet, possibly from the fire-suppression system.  Liara called out, but there was no reply.  At least there was no sign of blood.  Perhaps some of the crew had survived after all?  Perhaps she was the only one left on board?

A short warning tone sounded in her helmet and information scrolled along the bottom of her visor.  ' _Outside temperature: fifty-eight degrees centigrade_.'

A much louder bang followed and the rocking of the ship sent her back against the door jamb, causing the residual static from her mass effect field to discharge harmlessly into the wall.  Fortunately, her biotic barrier helped soften the impact this time.  “What was that?”

Glyph was back in Liara’s office, looking out the window.  “The ship has collided with debris of unknown origin.”

She couldn’t stop herself from looking out there again.  A massive piece of armor plating came into view, tumbling slowly end over end.  She recognized the angles and the white paint.  It was the front half of an Alliance cruiser. 

Emblazoned on the starboard side was a large hand-painted flag: blue, white, and black.  She recognized that too.  This ship used to be the SSV Nairobi, an Alliance cruiser they’d found licking its wounds in a ravine on Parag.

The crew were all from Earth’s East African Federation.

Liara had to look away.  She’d last seen the ship on the Citadel only a week ago, just before they left for the Illusive Man's secret base.  The crew had painted that flag after the news had come in from Earth; the ship’s namesake city had been completely wiped out by the Reapers.  According to Alliance intelligence there wasn’t a human being left alive from Lake Victoria to the Indian Ocean.

So many lives lost.  Yet here she was.  Why had she survived when so many hadn't?

Suddenly, Liara remembered something else.  “The Citadel.  Glyph, is it still out there?”

“Unknown, Doctor.”

She slumped against the door jamb.  Thirteen million souls, countless more refugees… it was all too much.  She had to do something, but what good was a Shadow Broker with no information?

Limping back into her office, Liara followed the line of cables on the floor to a panel behind her servers.  She’d never thought to ask exactly where this crawlspace led, but anywhere would probably be better than here.  After moving everything aside with the aid of her biotics, she pried open the door.  “Glyph?”

Obediently, the drone disappeared down the hole, leaving Liara to herself.  Never had she heard a ship be so utterly quiet before.   It was unsettling, like being inside a tomb.  She tried to clear her thoughts, looking over her shoulder to see the blue of Earth's oceans filling her window as the ship continued its slow, lifeless rotation through space.  Earth was still there, and Liara was still alive.  She needed to hang on to that.  Thankfully, Glyph popped back up more quickly than she expected.  “This way, Doctor.”

Liara descended gingerly into the crawlspace.  It took ages for her to get on her belly and begin the arduous task of pulling herself forward around cables and over shards of plastic with just her hands.  It was even hotter in here than it had been outside her quarters.  ' _Eighty-three degrees centigrade_.'  “Goddess.  Where is all this heat –“

The Normandy shuddered violently, but Liara was squeezed so tightly she had nothing for the jolt to throw her against.  It sounded as though the ship had powered up and then quickly back down again, but in her current predicament there was no way to be sure.  She really, really hated crawling through air vents.  Fifty-thousand years from now, some alien was going to board the Normandy and discover a dead asari trapped under the floor.  “More debris?” she asked her VI.

“No,” Glyph replied from up ahead.  “I believe someone is attempting to activate the engines.”

Stuck in a tube approaching a hundred degrees, on board a ship about to crash into the Earth, and that was the best news she’d heard all day.

“-ello?  H - lo?  Is  - one there?”

Liara banged her head against the metal ceiling when she heard that familiar voice calling loudly through her headset.  “Tali?”

Another voice said her name at that exact moment.  It was Jeff.

Tali's garbled words gradually became clearer.  “Liara?  Joker?  Keelah, I thought we were the only ones left.”

“We?” Liara repeated.

“I’m stuck on deck four with the rest of the engineering crew.  It’s getting extremely hot down here.”

“And not the good kind of hot,” a distant male voice quipped.  It sounded like Engineer Donnelly. 

The ship shook again.

“Stop doing that!” Tali cried.

Joker was offended. “Hey, if I don’t get this ship moving, we’re going to give the people of Earth a flashy new crater to admire.  Not that they’d probably notice,” he added under his breath.

“Yeah, well, every time you fire the engines it dumps more heat in here.  Ten-seconds at full thrust and the bulkheads will probably start melting.”

“Not to mention the little matter of our gruesome deaths,” engineer Daniels chipped in.

The line went silent.  “Well… uh… _shit_.”

“What about the maneuvering thrusters?” Liara asked.

“It doesn't matter what you use," Tali replied.  "Anything that generates heat just seems to dump it directly into engineering.  And without some way to get rid of it, we can’t get in there to fix the problem.”

Liara stopped crawling. 

“Ideas would be nice,” Joker said into the silence.

The ship shook twice in rapid succession.

“Hey!” Tali cried out again.

“Don't look at me!” the pilot yelled back.

The groaning of metal was followed by a gentle rumble, similar to the way the Normandy shook whenever she flew through a dense atmosphere, but after just a few seconds it subsided.

“What the hell was that?”

“I believe something was firing at the ship, Doctor,” Glyph replied.  “The sounds appear to be coming from deck five.”

“Reapers?” Tali asked.

“Nah.  If the Reapers were firing on us, we’d all be dust by now,” Joker replied.

Liara began hauling herself forward again.  “How long before we enter the Earth’s atmosphere?”

“Just under twenty-five minutes, Doc.”

“Okay, I’m going to see what that was,” she said, nodding at Glyph who flew on ahead, illuminating her path.

“Liara -" Tali began.

She cut the quarian off.  There was no time to think about… well, there just wasn't time.  “People might be trapped on the other decks.  I’m not leaving without at least looking for them.”

“I know.  I just… good luck.  If we can’t fix the problem by the time we hit the atmosphere, we’ll get to the escape pods, and you can try to land the ship without us, Joker.  That is... if you want.”

The pilot didn’t reply.  He had a choice between saving himself and leaving any trapped crew members behind, and landing the ship and probably incinerating them.

“We’re all going to make it out of here," Liara said, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt.  "Just do what you can, everyone.”

Murmurs of assent filled her commlink.

She grunted as she squeezed through a particularly narrow point, her arm muscles burning under the strain of pulling.  “Would it have killed the Illusive Man to put stairways on this ship?”

...

Thankfully, Glyph was able to lead her to one of the proper maintenance tubes, which made getting around quite a bit faster and slightly less agonizing.  The heads-up display in her helmet kept her appraised of the rising heat as they passed close to engineering, but once below deck four the temperature quickly returned to something approaching normal.  The strange rumbles continued however, though Joker disclaimed any responsibility for them.

Finally, she crawled out into the ship's shuttlebay, not too shocked to find the whole place was a mess.  Support beams from the ceiling had crushed the M-44 Hammerhead and one of the shuttles while most of the ship's stores lay scattered in crates across the floor.

In the middle of the bay was a solitary shuttle, its windows cracked, and its starboard hull charred, perhaps from fire.  For a moment she’d thought it must’ve been knocked off its mount and had its front-end smashed in by something, but its engines were sputtering and the forward gun port was glowing red hot.

She hobbled towards it.  Behind the shuttle stood the bay's heavy blue forcefield, protecting the entire deck from the vacuum of space.  She stopped in her tracks upon realizing that the door had not been opened per-se.  It was in fact no longer there, instead the twisted piece of metal was floating out in space just a few meters below the bow.

"Looks like we have visitors," Liara said into her receiver as she approached the less damaged side of the shuttle.  She pressed her helmet to the windscreen, but it was impossible to see inside.

"Tell them we charge fifty credits per hour for parking," Joker said through her headset.

"They're good guys, I hope?" Tali asked.

Liara nodded.  "It's an Alliance shuttle."  The markings along the side were white and green.  "Fifth fleet, I think."

Joker let out a breath.  "Whew, I was actually kind of worried it really was the Reapers."  He paused.  "Wait.  Husks can't fly shuttles, can they?"

Liara raised her hand, a biotic field encircling her, just on the off-chance that two-dozen husks were about to come charging out of it or something.

With a piercing shriek of metal on metal, the shuttle's door opened and six shell-shocked teenagers in Alliance combat suits came stumbling out.  They held up their hands before Liara quickly lowered hers, allowing the field to dissipate.  “Who are you?” she asked.

A nervous young woman stepped forward and saluted, “Ensign Rodriquez, 103rd Marine Division, ma'am.”

“Christ, put your hand down, Rodriquez,” someone called from inside the shuttle.  Liara had only met her maybe three times in her life, but when a heavily tattooed woman strode confidently out of the ship, she knew instantly who it was.  “Hey,” Jack said easily, stretching her arms over her head.  “Sorry about the door.”  She gestured over her shoulder, then shrugged.  “I guess.”

Another familiar face popped out.  It was Steve Cortez, right arm bandaged and his skin looking a little ashen. “Doctor T’Soni,” he said, leaning heavily against the hull.  “Sorry about that.  The ship wasn’t accepting my access codes.  It was, erm, _suggested_ that I shoot my way in.”

Joker's voice came over the commlink.  "Hey, was that Jack?  Is she tearing the ship apart again?" 

The woman rolled her eyes.  "Hey, Jerk, I mean, Jeff.”

“Wow.  Is the swear jar full or something?”

“Yeah, well, fuck you too."  The students laughed.

Liara shook her head.  “I’m glad you could make it, but what are all of you doing here?”

Cortez straightened himself, “I was ferrying supplies to the Southwark line, keeping a constant lock on the Normandy during the battle.  When the Crucible fired, suddenly the Reapers just _disintegrated_.  Took out my shuttle too.  Fortunately, I found this one and went looking for you.”

“And I saw Cortez flying over my position, so I flagged him down,” Jack added.

“What she means is, she hit my shuttle with a series of flares, then got on the radio and called me an asshole until I landed."

Jack shrugged again.  “Same thing.”

“The Reapers… disintegrated?” Tali repeated.

“Hey, Tali," Jack replied.  "Yeah.  Fuckin’ craziest thing.”

“They just blew away like they were made of dust or something,” Rodriquez added, earning nods from the other students.

Liara didn’t know what to say.  It felt like she was dreaming.  Somehow, they'd actually done it.  They’d stopped a cycle that had lasted a million years.

"We appreciate you looking for us," Tali was saying.

"Yeah, well, Shepard pulled my ass out of the fire a couple of times," Jack replied.  Then she looked around the bay.   "Where is she, anyway?"

The way Liara's face dropped must've clued her in, because Jack's expression immediately turned sour.

That horrible ache in her stomach returned with a vengeance.   Every second that Shepard wasn't on her mind felt like a betrayal.  "I don't know where she is... but we can't worry about that now.  There isn’t much time."   Liara let out a breath as she poked her head inside the shuttle.  Some of the consoles looked as though they had recently been on fire.  It didn’t seem particularly flyable, let alone safe.  “Anyone else in there?”

Someone tapped her on the back, and Liara found herself face to face with Kasumi Goto.  “Hey, Doc.”

Joker came in over the comm again.  " _Kasumi_?  Jeez, you got anyone else in there?  A starbase repair team perhaps?"

"No.  Sorry.  It's just me."

"Oh, so you just wanted to join us for our inevitable fiery demise then?"

Kasumi smiled.  "Wouldn't miss it.  And, um, sorry about the door."

Liara interrupted Joker's inevitable follow up question.  The digital timer in her helmet was still counting down.  "Do any of you know about heat-dispersal systems?"

Jack's group only looked at each other nervously.

Cortez opened his mouth only to be surprised into silence when the elevator door blew off its hinges.  Liara gaped when the familiar silhouette of Ashley Williams appeared through the smoke.

“Yikes,” the Spectre said, pulling off her helmet and running a hand through her hair.  “I’m not cleaning this up.”

One of the male students elbowed another.  “Holy crap, I think that’s the _other_ Spectre.  What a _fox_.”  Jack cuffed him on the ear.

Fortunately, Ashley didn’t notice.  She called out from halfway across the bay, “Hey, Doctor.   Friends of yours?”

Joker broke in before Liara could respond.  "Um, hello?  Not to interrupt this little family reunion, but impending fiery death: t-minus sixteen minutes and counting."

"Right," she said, pointing to the storage lockers which were thankfully still bolted to the wall and relatively undamaged.  "Everyone grab a helmet.  Ashley, follow me."

…

After Ashley forced the door to engineering - with a crowbar instead of a grenade this time - Liara’s suit sounded another warning, ' _Temperature exceeding 120 degrees centigrade_.'  Another fifty degrees and everyone would have no choice but to clear out.

Through the intense light, Liara could see two people in Alliance spacesuits tapping feverishly at their control panels.  Tali was standing directly in front of the eezo core, which was now glowing a rather terrifying shade of orange.  All that protected everyone in the room from instant incineration was another forcefield, and clearly even that line of defense wasn’t doing a great job.

"Any change in status?" Liara asked, shielding her eyes with her arm.  Her visor detected several large open doors on the far side of the core leading into the blackness of space.  She’d never seen those before.

"No,” Tali replied, too busy with her omni-tool to look back at her.  “I can’t get the cooling system to respond, and it’s too hot to fix manually.”

"What's with the open doors?"

"They're drydock access ports.  I was hoping to radiate some of the core’s extra heat into space.  It's not really helping though."

“There’s nothing you can do?” Ashley asked.

Engineer Adams' muffled voice sounded from inside the maintenance tube over their heads, "Well, normally we could dump emergency coolant in there and then expel it through the doors, but that's one of the roughly six-hundred systems that are down at the moment."

Tali gripped the handrail more tightly.  "Suggestions would be _really_ nice right about now."

Ashley glanced at Liara, a frown visible even through her helmet.  “What do you think, Adams?  You’re the XO here.”

His voice was still muffled.  Much like Ashley, he must’ve had a malfunctioning comm unit.  “Being stuck in a tube, I’m not really in a position to command much of anything.”  There was a loud bang followed by a curse.  “Blasted Elkos Combine garbage.”

“I guess it’s your call then, Ashley,” Liara offered.  She was the highest ranking officer on board after all.

Ashley shook her head.  “I, er, never actually trained for starship command at the academy.  Not that that really matters right now.  We’ve only got twelve minutes…”

The asari swallowed and nodded.  Their options were few.  Shepard would want them to live, that was all she was certain of.  “Cortez?  Is that shuttle still operational?"

It was Jack who answered.  “Why?”

“We're going to have to abandon ship.”

A loud snort came though her comm.  “Fuck that.”

“ _Jack_.”

“Look, I know fuck all about engines, ok?  But can’t you just dump some water on it or something?  I’ve seen them do it on freighters before.”

Tali’s ghostly white eyes blinked from behind her mask.  “Hmm.  No… no, the Normandy doesn't carry that much water.   It wouldn’t be enough."

Liara looked to the nearest engineering console.  The core was reading a temperature so high that at first she thought the monitor must’ve been malfunctioning, and on the rightmost display was a map of the life-support systems alongside the general layout of the deck and the shuttlebay immediately below it.  She’d forgotten that engineering and the shuttlebay shared the two decks between them.  Why you could even see -

Suddenly, a thought came to her and she quickly made her way to the set of unopened doors leading back to the elevator, prying them open one by one.   “Jack?”

“Yeah?”

Once the second door was opened and locked in place, she limped over to the thick glass windows overlooking the shuttlebay.  “Tell your students to start clearing the deck.”

Jack was staring back up at her.  “Huh?”

“Throw everything that isn’t bolted down out into space.”

“What’s the big plan?” Ashley asked over Jack’s acknowledgment, following Liara out into the hall.  The students were already using their biotics to enthusiastically hurl crates out into the void, and they both watched surprised as Jack proceeded to lift Cortez’s shuttle all by herself.

“We don’t have water,” Liara replied, the blue of Earth’s oceans looming ever closer beyond the open door, “but what we will have soon is air.”

Ashley grinned as understanding dawned on her.  The shuttlebay faced forward.  All they needed was a path from the bay to the drive core for the air to follow, and the atmosphere would provide the rest.  In fact, Liara realized, it was not unlike the way the Shadow Broker’s ship cooled its own engines. 

“Not even biotics will break this glass though,” Ashley said.

Jack had the shuttle over her head now, just about ready to send it flying.  Its forward gun port was still trailing wisps of black smoke.  “Jack!  Hold up.”

“Make it quick,” she grunted.

Liara glanced at Ashley.  “Ever fire a mass accelerator cannon indoors before?”

Ashley’s grin grew wider.

…

Liara and Jack stood at the very edge of the shuttlebay, white clouds blocking their view of the rapidly approaching surface.  Minutes ago, they had formed a great biotic shell in front of them in order to reinforce the shuttlebay’s own forcefield and keep the searing heat of reentry from baking them all alive.  The few remains of the door were long gone, detached and disposed of with the help of Spectre Williams.  White hot flames licked the exterior of the ship for several minutes before disappearing as the vessel slowed.  Soon it would be time to see if Liara’s plan was going to get everyone killed or not.

Behind them, against the walls, stood Jack’s students, sheltering both themselves and the non-biotics.  They had their fields angled to help direct the torrent of air into engineering.  All the small tools and bits of plastic that had gone unnoticed were rattling against the floor, and there was the distinct danger of them being swept up into engineering through the line of broken windows once Liara and Jack started letting the outside air in.  Thankfully, the Normandy had a sturdy warship’s drive core, not a freighter’s.  It could take a few hard knocks.

"Six-thousand!” Joker called out, as the ship continued to shake violently.  “Fifty-nine-hundred -"

Liara nodded at Jack, who wasn’t even breaking a sweat.  "Ready?"

A grim nod was her only response.

“Do it, Ashley.”

From her place against the wall, Ashley keyed in a series of codes on her omni-tool.  All at once, Liara was pressed back by the immense increase of pressure as the forcefield went offline.  Only Jack’s presence kept her upright.  “Okay,” she said to her.  “Here were go.” 

Immediately, the wind kicked up as they slowly let the bubble shrink until there was just a few feet of breathing room between them.  Tali was glued to the floor between their feet, refusing to look at anything but her own omni-tool as it fed her a constant stream of data from engineering.  Liara understood why.  Once through the clouds, rolling green hills and piles of rubble that had once been cities could be seen rushing by at a dizzying rate.  It was nothing less than terrifying.

Also, there was the fact that the Normandy’s underside was clearly scarred from battle damage.  She hoped the engines had fared better.

“Core temperature dropping!” Tali yelled.

Joker was almost impossible to hear now that the rush of air drowned out everything else.  It reminded Liara of walking along the outside of the Shadow Broker’s ship on Hagalaz, only here it was as fine a day as anyone could ask for.  "F - ring main - gines -"

The Normandy lurched, knocking Liara to her knees.  Jack remained standing, helping her up with one hand.  The ship yawed from side to side as the engines made the most horrible sound and shook so badly it felt like Liara’s teeth were going to fall out.  There was a blue flash as the mass effect field engaged and suddenly all the interior lights came on.

The rocking ceased.  “Two-thousand,” Joker called out, his voice strained.  Some of the students started to cheer, at least until Jack ordered them to shut their mouths.

For several long seconds, the ship seemed to sail towards the ground with all the inevitability of a dart, but just when she thought they had failed after all, the engines fully powered up and their descent slowed.  

"Mass effect field at maximum."

“Core temperature steady!” Tali called out.

Another lurch left the ship hanging in mid-air for a moment.  Then, before everyone’s astonished eyes, the Normandy descended and touched gently down on the grassy plain just as it had done a hundred times before.

"Well, I'll be fucked," Jack said breathlessly, letting go of Liara's hand.  “We’re not dead.”

A loud whoop filled her comm, before Joker coughed and settled himself.  "All right, taking non-essential systems off-line.  Venting the core."

Loud exhaust fans kicked in as their biotic field disappeared, and Tali could only stare up at Liara for a long moment, her face, as always, unreadable behind her mask.  Then she suddenly jumped up and hugged the asari tightly.

Finally allowing herself to breathe, Liara patted Tali’s back.   "You okay?"

She nodded against Liara's shoulder.  "Thanks to you."

Liara found herself blushing and Jack laughed at them both.

"Shepard would be proud.”

Liara shut her eyes and let out a deep breath.

"We'll find a way to get back up there," Tali said when she finally pulled back.  “We’ll find her… somehow.”

It was hard to share the quarian’s optimism.  Whatever had happened on the Citadel, Shepard was at ground zero, right in the thick of it.  "You really think there's any hope?"

She nodded.  "I don't know what happened, but if anyone could survive all that, it's Commander Shepard."

“Hell yeah she could,” Jack said, looking out over the grassy hills dotted with trees.  “Woman’s fucking invincible.”

* * *

September 8th, 2186

SSV Normandy, Gemini Sigma Cluster

...

It was so easy to lose herself in her work.  Millions of data feeds streaming in from a thousand worlds: planets under attack, vessels reported missing, there was never a break.   No matter the hour, the war never ceased, and every moment she spent away from her data feeds might mean another hundred people left behind here, another family torn apart there.

The galaxy couldn’t afford for her to be caught napping when a Reaper fleet invaded a new system or when Cerberus attacked some seemingly unimportant outpost.

Everyone needed her at her best.  The Broker’s resources needed to be used to their fullest power and with the greatest possible efficiency, otherwise what right had she to even be here?

Liara had been so busy.  Coordinating quick yet safe travel for many of the scientists assigned to the Crucible would be a monumental task even if half the systems in the galaxy hadn’t already been lost to the Reapers.  Many of the scientists were ex-Cerberus, and not a few had large bounties on their heads from criminal organizations and even planetary governments.  Sending wanted persons through the wrong system might not just result in their deaths, it could seriously threaten the entire project.

‘ _Hazard: contact lost with Sigma Octantis colony.  SSV Kursk dispatched.  No communications received since 8.22.86.  Presumed destroyed.  All ships advised to avoid system indefinitely_.’

In addition, there was the unending torrent of bad news; a constant stream of intel that would wear down the hardest of hearts.  However, when the bad news stopped, well, that was even worse.

Still, even though Liara spent most of her days – or what passed for days on a starship - hunched over her terminal, she wasn’t so far gone that she would miss her door opening and someone entering her quarters.

Her eyes darted to the door to find Shepard, her hair rather more disheveled than usual, stepping inside with none of her usual grace.  She looked exhausted, and clearly had made no attempt to hide the bags under her eyes, but then everyone on the ship looked that way as of late, even Javik.

Usually, the Commander would stop by Glyph's terminal first to have it scan any fragments of tech she'd picked up planetside.  This time however, she kept right on walking, past Glyph, past Liara, until she was crawling on top of the covers of Liara’s bed.

Liara continued to watch from the corner of her eye.  Half a minute ticked by and Shepard was still lying there, staring at nothing.

She glanced back at her screen.  ‘ _0200 hours_.’  Shepard should've been asleep ages ago.  Something was definitely wrong.

‘ _Of course things are wrong_ ,’ she chided herself.  A million things were wrong.

And still, the reports kept flooding in: ‘ _Stellar Flare warning: Starhome.  Sustained radiation levels from primary expected to exceed safe limit for the next solar year_.’  That was a problem.  Starhome was one of the few colonies near Earth still accepting refugees.  She tapped at her keyboard.  ‘ _It never rains but it pours_.’

She dispatched inquires to the few agents she still had beyond the Arcturus Relay.  Maybe they could redirect some freighters, or shuttles, or _anything_.  Of course, that still left the question; even if everyone could be evacuated, where could they possibly go?

Another minute passed and she noted that Shepard was still lying on her bed.  Somewhat reluctantly, she stepped back from her terminal.  Even while motionless or invisible, Glyph was always awake.  It never failed to let her know when anything required her immediate attention.

Besides, Shepard was important too.  More important than all this equipment, and, if Liara was honest, more important than herself.

She stepped over to the bed.  When Shepard didn't move, Liara took off her gloves and quietly crawled up on her hands and knees until they were lying side by side.  She gave Shepard a tentative smile, and was more than a little relieved when the Commander smiled back.

It was still surprising when Shepard finally spoke.  Her voice was so unusually timid, “Am I doing the right thing?”

It wasn’t a question Liara ever expected to be asked.  The Commander made a career out of difficult decisions: from her time in a street gang on Earth, to Virmire, to working alongside Cerberus.  It was hard to imagine anyone making so many decisions without changing inside somehow, losing their compassion, the better parts of their human nature; but Shepard hadn't.  Liara placed a hand on the woman’s bicep.  “What do you mean?”

Wordlessly, Shepard handed her a datapad.  Scrolling up the screen was a report from Alliance intelligence.  Liara had seen it already, but the final lines still gave her chills, _'Intelligence estimates Reaper forces are eliminating approximately 1.86 million humans per day.  In combination with battlefield deaths, disease, and famine, this pace will result in the complete depopulation of Earth within a decade_.'

“They’re buying us time with their lives.”

She didn't know what to say to that.  It was true, after all.

“Meanwhile, we just spent an entire day tracking down that missing cruiser.  Every day we spend out here, another two million die.  And that’s just on Earth.”

“Shepard.”

The Commander gave no sign that she’d even heard her.  Her gaze was focused on the far wall.

“That one ship could be what tips the balance in our favor,” Liara said.

Unsure green eyes finally met hers again.  “You really think that.”

Liara nodded.  Inwardly, she had all the doubts in the world, but it was easier to try to reassure others than it was to reassure herself.  “Maybe that ship cuts a path for the Normandy.  Maybe it draws fire from the ground forces.  Maybe it takes a hit meant for the Crucible.  I don’t know.  There’s no way _to_ know.  But we only have one chance at this, Shepard.  Every ship counts.”

The woman in her bed sighed, but eventually nodded.  She still looked unsure, but at least her eyes no longer had that unsettling faraway look.

Pulling Shepard to her, Liara kissed the top of her head as the Commander buried herself in her neck.   Shepard's hair smelled crisp and clean.  She did love her showers.  “Comfortable?” Liara asked when Shepard didn’t pull away.

“Very,” she murmured into her skin.

Liara hummed in response.   Holding onto Shepard was like holding on to life; her heart-beat so quickly, and her skin was so warm.  Compared to the asari, humans were so vibrant, so impulsive, so... short lived.   She'd give anything to be able to protect this one from what lay ahead.  “Glyph?”

The drone moved into her line of sight, but only came as close as the foot of the bed.  She wondered where it had learned such propriety from.  “Yes, Doctor?”

“Could you turn off the lights, please?”

“Of course.”  Gradually, the entire room darkened, each monitor turning off one by one before the overhead lights dimmed into nonexistence.  “Goodnight, Doctor.”  And then Glyph was gone too.  It was just her and Shepard illuminated dimly by the blue fire emitted by the Normandy as it traveled well beyond the speed of light, flickering in through the windows.

“Better?”

Shepard snuggled closer.  “Yes.”

Liara reached behind Shepard’s back to gently rub her shoulder.  Like the rest of her, the muscles there were strong.

The woman sighed happily and kissed her collar bone.   Liara hadn't even noticed Shepard unzipping the top of her uniform.  No wonder she was so skilled at infiltration.  “I wasn’t interrupting anything, I hope?”

Reports no doubt continued to stream in: ship manifests, Reaper sightings, industrial output estimates.  It could wait.  Shepard needed her attention now.  And if it wasn't for this damned war, she'd be more than happy to move into the Commander's quarters and provide that attention on a more frequent basis.  "Nope."

“Okay," the woman in her arms said, not really sounding like she believed her.

Liara ran a hand through the Commander's red hair, and she could feel Shepard smiling against her chest.

"You have a thing for hair, don't you?"

"Says the woman with her face pressed against my breasts."

Shepard laughed and kissed each one, which wasn't really all that erotic considering Liara still had her uniform on.  "I do like them though."

“Well, it was my goal all along to seduce you with my asari charms, and my Shadow Broker resources.  I'm glad to see I succeeded.”

Shepard pulled back and grinned, her eyes sparkling.  “For all you know, maybe there’s another Broker out there, one so shadowy that not even _you_ know about her.”

“Uh huh.”

“Mmhmm," Shepard replied, returning to rest her head under Liara's chin.  "She might even be right under your very nose."

The asari smiled, ruffling Shepard's hair.  At that moment, it occurred to her that she was being given an all too brief glimpse of what life with Shepard might be like once the war was over; if, indeed, they lived to see such a time.  She hugged the woman close.

Shepard continued, “And all this time she was manipulating _you_ to fall in love with _her_.”

“And out of all the asari in the galaxy, she chose me, huh?”

“Yep.”

"It must've been a hard choice.  I've seen the way she looks at the other asari, and the way those asari look back at her."  She was thinking specifically about Shiala, the woman they had rescued on Noveria, and the legions of adoring fans Shepard had amassed after making an appearance at the Arena.  Goddess, the way they _threw_ themselves at her...

“Well, she’s incredibly intelligent, and dashing, and beautiful,” Shepard continued.  “So that's to be expected.  Or, um... so I’ve heard.”

Liara chuckled.  “She is certainly all those things to me… and more.”

She felt a soft kiss on her neck.  “ _Liara_.”

“Although…” she paused, smiling when the kissing suddenly stopped.  “I _did_ have to buy that VI for her because she kept forgetting to feed her fish.”

Sheepish green eyes met hers again.  “I bet she’s eternally grateful for that.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”  Shepard kissed her again on the neck, making her way up to Liara’s ear.  It was her weakness.  “How much would one of those VI’s cost anyway?  Theoretically speaking.”

Liara sighed with pleasure.  “I think five years of groveling is a fair price.”

“Five years, huh?”

She nodded gravely.

“Should I write up a contract?”

“For who?” Liara asked, smiling again.

“For, uh, me…” Shepard sighed.  “Yeah.  Guess I’m pretty bad at roleplaying, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  I’ve heard you play a very convincing Allison Gunn.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Shepard groaned, curling back under Liara’s chin.

She continued stroking the woman’s hair.  It had always been an effective way of getting her to relax.  “I’m surprised no one recognized you.”

“Hock certainly did.  The rest were probably just being polite.”

Liara hummed.  “Fortunately, you don’t have to _play_ the role of a hero.  That seems to come naturally to you.”

Shepard huffed.  “I’m happy just being plain-old Shepard, as long as I can go to sleep like this every night.”

Liara kissed her.  "I love you more than I'll ever be able to say."  ‘ _Even if we both should live a thousand years_.’

This time Shepard sighed happily.  “I’m all yours, Liara.  For however long we have left.”

Liara hugged her bondmate more tightly and said nothing about tears brimming in her eyes.

* * *

September 26th, 2186

SSV Normandy, 50 kilometers west of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

...

She knew from experience that it wouldn't go away; that horrible absent feeling stretching from her throat to the very center of her being was just as strong now as it had been two years ago.  So much had happened since then, yet suddenly it was like she was looking out the viewport of that escape pod again, watching the wreck of the Normandy being torn apart.

The nights she had spent alone mourning Shepard’s loss felt as though they'd never ended.  Only this time, there was no work to throw herself into, no ancient enemy to direct all her grief and rage into fighting.

If anything, with the Reapers destroyed, it was a time for celebration, but she had no appetite for it.  It was a feeling the entire crew seemed to share.  They were grateful to come away with so few causalities, but Shepard's uncertain fate hung over everyone's spirits like a shroud.  No one spoke her name, but it was clear that the Commander was on everyone's mind.

And, of course, everyone tiptoed around Liara - not that she really blamed them.  She was sure she made for lousy company lately.   It was part of the reason she was outside now, sitting on a small chair by herself in front a fire, her back to the ship, and an array of damaged components littering the ground all around her.

She stared blankly at her datapad, absently swiping through a long list of her Shadow Broker contacts.  Not a single one of them was transmitting.  Once in a while she’d tap the connection button on a random individual's name, an orange disk would appear, spin for a few seconds, before finally sounding a familiar tone, indicating a connection failure.

That was the only type of response she had gotten in past twelve hours, and with the Normandy's comm-systems currently without power, it was likely to be the only response she'd ever get.  Frustrated, she dropped the pad onto her lap and returned to poking her campfire with a bent piece of scrap metal.  That too wasn’t necessary, the fire came from a small black metal disk - part of an Alliance survival kit - but it gave her something to do.

The sun had only just slipped beneath the tree-covered hills, leaving the thin silver crescent of Luna hanging low in the sky.  She'd heard that just a few months ago the lights on the dark side kept the moon visible no matter its phase.  Now there were no lights, no cities, no people.  As far as she knew, Luna was as dead as it had been in the billions of years before humans first took to the stars.

She watched in silence as the moon was soon lost beneath the dark of an all-consuming cloud bank.   Just a few stars could be seen now, frequently overpowered by the fireballs streaking across the sky in every direction.  It was like watching the great winter meteor shower on Thessia, only these were ships, or parts of ships, or parts of the Citadel, she couldn't tell.

The wind picked up, causing the tall, rustling grass to brush against her legs.

There came a deep rumble from behind, and the hills were briefly lit by flashes of lightning.  It was funny.  The Reapers destroyed every civilization they touched, but there were some things even they could not change.  On those long dead worlds scattered throughout the galaxy, the winds still blew, the waves still crashed on the shores, and the rains still fell.

She picked up her datapad and tried scanning the horizon for signals again.  The display presented her with a view of the unobstructed sky, littered with hundreds of tiny moving dots, most of them tagged with phrases like 'unknown debris,' or 'possible starship.'  They all seemed to move in regular orbits around the planet.  Nothing moved as a starship would.

It came as a surprise when something larger than any dreadnought came into view over the north-western hill.  It was big.  Very big.  Her pad estimated forty kilometers in length.  It could only be one thing.   Seconds later, the scanner beeped again.  Another large object, roughly the same length came into view.  Then another.  And another.  And finally, another.  ‘ _Goddess_ …’ Liara's heart sank in her chest.   It was the Citadel, its wards separated and tumbling on their own across the sky, soon to be lost again behind the clouds as it continued in its orbit.  The image was too small and fuzzy to see much, but some of wards were trailed by long clouds of debris while others showed signs of fire.

She quickly entered the standard Citadel approach hail, but seconds passed by and there was no response.  She shouldn’t have expected any.  The pad was tied to the Normandy's systems.  Without them, it could barely communicate to something a hundred meters away, let alone a hundred kilometers.

Still she tried, even as she was forced to wipe away raindrops with the palm of her hand.  The pad was picking up faint transmissions, but where they were coming from was beyond its ability to discern.   The signals could just as easily be coming from nearby cities.

And then, mere seconds after it had appeared, the last of the wards disappeared from sight, lost behind the advancing clouds.

Liara shuddered as the rain kept falling.  How could anyone survive a blast strong enough to rip the _Citadel_ apart? 

She didn't know what was worse: seeing Shepard's body lying cold and mangled inside a coffin on the Broker's base on Alingon, or the prospect of her being forever lost up there, never to be seen again.

It was impossible to hold it in anymore.  She wept.  She wept for Shepard.  She wept for Thessia.  She wept for all of her missing friends.  And she wept for herself, for living to see the deaths of so many.

She turned her eyes to the heavens and let out an agonized scream.  Her heart pounded in her chest, and it felt like she might drown or suffocate, or both.  Thanks to Shepard, life would go one, but what had Liara left to live for?

Lost in her grief, it took her some time to realize that the rain was no longer falling on her despite the incessant roar of the downpour.  She wiped her eyes, confused by the sight of raindrops bouncing off a biotic barrier.

It was a shock to see Jack just standing there a few meters away, hand raised about shoulder high, maintaining the barrier as easily as one might hold an umbrella.  "You okay?" she asked.

Liara shut her eyes and sighed, thankful that the rain masked her tears even if no one would’ve been fooled.  She nodded slightly, which seemed enough to placate the woman.

Jack turned over a nearby chair, draining it of water before sitting down.  Not for an instant did the surrounding biotic shield falter.  It was obvious why Cerberus had wanted her so badly.

Composing herself was difficult.  Liara opened and closed her fists a few times, breathing deeply in and out until she felt at least slightly more settled.  Jack either didn't notice, or was skilled at pretending like she didn't notice.

"Kasumi was asking for you," she said, still holding the barrier even as she made herself comfortable.

"Kasumi?"

Jack rolled her shoulders and grunted.  "Yeah.”  As always, her expression was difficult to read.  In all the times they’d been in each other’s company, Jack had always seemed at least a little bit irritated.

"You're running errands for Kasumi now?"

She snorted.  "I owed her one.  Said we'd be even if I found you."

Liara had to ask, because honestly anything was better than talking about their current plight.  "You owed her one?"

Jack sighed.  "Back in London, she came down with a bunch of marines.   Helped protect two of my kids when their unit got surrounded."

"Oh," Liara said.  "Are they all right?"

"Yeah.  Kahlee’s still there, watching over the ones I didn’t bring with me.  Some of the kids ended up with broken bones.  One lost an eye, but everyone made it through."

"I'm glad."

"Yeah, me too," Jack replied.  Her eyes were far away, but it was obvious just how much she meant it.

Shepard spoke highly of everyone who had served under her during the Collector mission, but admittedly, Liara had never really understood her bondmate's high opinion of Jack.  From her profile she seemed crude, violent, and fairly sociopathic; not the type of person Shepard would usually associate herself with.   Perhaps she was able to see Jack's potential.

Just another reason why Shepard was such an outstanding leader.

"Never put a team together before..." Jack was saying.  "Well, I mean _I have_ , but using a bunch of mercs as cannon fodder while you break in someplace to steal shit doesn't really count.  It's just _weird_ caring what happens to everyone, ya know?"

Liara hummed in agreement, though she wasn't sure if Jack’s newfound empathy was quite as weird as the simple fact that they were both there, talking to each other like normal people.  From both a background and a personality perspective, she and Jack had about as much in common as an Elcor and a Vorcha.

As they spoke under the driving rain, Jack described the blast from the Crucible as she remembered it.  The cheers of the soldiers when the Reapers were suddenly vaporized.  The way she worried about all the 'shit' her kids had seen down in London.  It was clear that Jack was itching to get back there.  The fact that she was here at all said a lot about what Shepard meant to her.

For her part, Liara said very little, though she was thankful for the company.  She wondered how Javik, Vega, and Wrex had fared, but it was far easier to believe that they had made it through than Shepard had.  After all, they hadn't been on the Citadel.

“Go on,” Jack said after a while.  She indicated the biotic barrier surrounding them.  “I’m not doing this for my health.”

“Oh... right,” Liara replied, standing.  “And thanks.”

If anything seemed capable of making Jack uncomfortable, it was a word like ‘thanks.’  She looked away.  “Yeah, well, Shepard would probably get all pissy if she found out I let her girl get struck by lightning.”

That wasn’t exactly what Liara was referring to, but it was probably true enough.

They stomped through the muddy ground together until the body of the Normandy sheltered them from most of the rain, if not the wind.  Whenever the lightning flashed, it was possible to see the burnt grass to the rear of the ship, where all the excess heat was still being vented.

“Where did you say Kasumi was?”

“Shepard’s quarters.”

Liara swallowed as her feet hit the makeshift ramp.  Her loud steps seemed to echo back from the dark and empty shuttlebay.

"She’s still alive, you know," Jack said, stopping at the foot of the ramp, hands in her pockets.

Liara turned, exhaling a long breath.  Two years ago she had come face to face with Shepard’s lifeless body.  The one person in all the galaxy who seemed like she could do anything, the only one who truly understood the great danger they were all in: dead.  How could she ever put into words the way that sight shattered her world?  "She died once before."

Jack crossed her arms, choosing to look out at the thunderstorm instead of Liara.  "Yeah, well, with Shepard that don’t mean shit."

* * *

End of Chapter 1

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

September 26th, 2186

SSV Normandy, 50 kilometers west of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

...

The door stood there, its access panel lit green, as intimidating as the first time she’d ever knocked on it.  That had been on a different Normandy, back when she was just a naïve archaeologist with a crush on the captain.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

Liara steeled herself before stepping forward, the door opening automatically.

Her throat went dry.  Shepard’s desk was lost under a sea of fiberglass and twisted plastic panels.  The panes that had once made up the Commander's display case laid shattered on the ground, along with its intricate models.  Heavy rain poured in from above like a sheet through a three meter hole in the ceiling, falling onto that mass of rubble and disappearing through a similarly large jagged hole in the floor.

She really shouldn’t have expected anything different, but it was still a shock to see Shepard’s cabin in such a state of destruction.  Time had not ended with the Reapers.  This was the world now and Liara would have to live in it.

Without Shepard.

Impossibly, the fish tank was still intact and functioning, filling the room with a soft blue glow.   Carefully arranged corals and aquatic plants were loose in the water, but the fish themselves remained very much alive.   The Aquarium’s VI chirped to life when she pressed its access pad.  _‘Fully functional.’_   It was drawing about a thousand watts per hour.  At the moment, the Normandy's batteries could easily handle that, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.  She hoped she wouldn’t have to shut it down.

Liara pressed a hand to the tank.  A school of clown loaches approached her fingers then darted away.  They were always Shepard’s favorite.  Would it be a misuse of resources to keep them alive?

Reflected in the glass, Liara saw Shepard’s end table suddenly flip over and right itself.  When she turned around, Kasumi sparkled into view.  The woman bent over to pick up a holographic chess piece off the floor; a gift from Aria T’Loak.  "Shep has excellent taste in decor."

Even with most of it in shambles, Liara had to agree.

“Come on,” Kasumi added softly.  “Help me move these books.”

The constant mist from the rain soaked her skin, but with Kasumi's help she began gathering up the books and placing them on the far shelf, well out of the elements.  Liara had never taken much notice of Shepard's collection before, despite the fact that books were a rarity in a civilization where a single datachip could hold a planet's entire literary history with room to spare.  There had always been... well, _other activities_ to busy herself with here.  The titles were surprisingly varied: _The Meditations of Marcus Aerulius_ , _The Death of Arthur_ , _A Human Guide to Asari Biology_.  Well, she thought, cheeks warming when she skimmed over one of several dog-eared pages, that certainly explained a few things.

There were also more than a few books written by someone named Agatha Christie.  Whenever she placed one on the shelf, Kasumi took it and stacked them together in a pile.  Liara didn't ask.

When that was done, they moved on to other things: discarded datapads, model ships, framed digital photos.  It struck her that Shepard's oldest picture was of herself and David Anderson standing in front of a newly christened Normandy.  There was nothing here from the Commander’s childhood or even her days at the academy.

No parents, no family.  Shepard had told her that much.

And somewhere in all that rubble was a photo of herself, but Liara was unable to find it.

"Ah, ha!" Kasumi exclaimed, fishing out an unfamiliar black cube from beneath a ruined chair.  The woman sat down on the couch and began eagerly turning the object over in her lap like it was a puzzle to be solved.

Liara couldn’t bring herself to protest the invasion of privacy.  It wasn’t as though such things mattered now.  Instead, she struggled to come up with something to talk about.  Small-talk was an art she'd never been able to master, and, if anything, her skill with it had only gotten worse in the past year.  “Jack said you did her a favor.”

Kasumi hummed as she held the box close to her eyes.   There was an almost imperceptible indentation on one side, and she tapped her fingers against it.  “When my shuttle was landing in London, we picked up a group of marines surrounded on the roof of a tube station.  Turned out that some of the Grissom Academy students were with them.”

“I see.”

“It’s surprisingly easy to get on Jack’s good side, you know?  All you have to do is protect something she actually cares about."

Liara blinked, looking down at the floor.  Jack cared deeply for her students, but now she was here.  She must’ve cared strongly for Shepard too.

Kasumi was smiling up at her.

“It’s strange.  Up until ten minutes ago, we’d hardly ever spoken.”

“Yet now she’s looking out for you.”

Liara tilted her head.  “I don’t know if I’d go that far.  She still seemed pretty annoyed to me.”

“That’s just her default expression," Kasumi replied.  "Jack’s a puppy, really.  Just don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be fine.”  She looked back up from the box in her hand.  “And don’t tell her I said that.”

“Right.”

Her attention returned to the cube.  “You know, when you’ve seen the things I have it’s kind of hard to be surprised by anything.  I never imagined Jack as a teacher.  That’s why I got on that shuttle to the Southwark line in the first place.  Kind of wanted to see it for myself.  See her in action.  Plus, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but being next to Jack is the safest place to be.  Or second safest, at any rate.”

Liara shook her head.  She wished more than ever that she had been with Shepard in those days.  An entire year with access to the galaxy's greatest information network and she'd missed so much.

“And,” Kasumi added.  “I have money on her and Miranda getting together.  Can’t see that if Jack gets blown into a thousand angry pieces.”

Liara gave a light snort.  One would be more likely to walk in on Wrex and Garrus locked in a steamy makeout session than see Jack and Miranda stand to even be in the same room as each other for five minutes.  Thank the goddess Shepard’s apartment had been big enough for them both.

Kasumi patted the seat of the sofa next to her, and when Liara took the offered spot, she smiled, pulling back the hood of her coat with her free hand.  Even with the wealth of information available at her fingertips, Liara had never seen Kasumi without her hood.  Black hair ran down well past her shoulders, and there were the tell-tale signs of cybernetic implants below her right ear.  “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

Again, Liara shook her head.

“It’s a memory.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Aaaand,” Kasumi drawled in that naturally playful tone of hers.  “It’s also a box.”

Liara smiled in what felt like the first time in years.

Kasumi's answering smile showed her relief.  “I suppose you know about the time Shep helped me retrieve something that belonged to my former partner?” she asked, her tone turning serious, or as serious as Kasumi ever got.

Liara nodded.

"And I bet you know what was inside that box too."

Another nod.  She _was_ the shadow broker after all.

Kasumi nodded back, smiling brightly again.  “I’ve met a few Alliance commanders in my time.  Every single one of them would’ve taken the box, or told me to destroy it.  I'm not used to having people trust me to make my own decisions.”

Few people in this universe did.  Maybe that was what made Shepard so special?

“Anyway, Shep messaged me one day.  Said she wanted a greybox, like the one I have," she said, tapping her forehead.  "I was all set to _acquire_ one for her,” she continued, adding airquotes in the appropriate places, “but then she found out about the complications, specifically the recovery time.  Greyboxes are pretty safe, but unless you have the right cybernetic implants they kind of have to open up your skull to install them.  It's a little... well, gross.”

Without her hood, Kasumi’s optical implants were easy to make out, glowing a faint red in the dim light of the cabin.  Sometimes Liara wondered just how many alterations the woman had made to herself over the years.  “Either way, she would've had to have spent a few days in the hospital to let the techs make sure it was integrating with her brain properly.  And even afterwards, there’s always the possibility of a rejection a few weeks down the line.  ‘Course, Shep said she couldn’t do that.  Not when there were countless injured who needed those beds, not while there were people out there dying, not while she needed to be in top physical and mental condition."

That sounded like Shepard all right.

Kasumi held the box close to her eyes again.  "The lock requires a DNA sample, fingerprints, and a biotic signature."  An odd electric flash erupted from her fingers but the box only beeped angrily at her.  She frowned back at it.

"So it's unbreakable?"

"No lock is unbreakable," Kasumi corrected, placing it on the table and beckoning Liara closer.  "But most of the time it's just easier to use the key."

"Me?"

"Go on," she said.  Kasumi guided Liara's fingers to the indentations on each side.  "Now just use some of that biotic magic of yours."

When Liara did as instructed, a previously hidden light began to shine from the top panel.  She sat back in awe as the room grew darker, and her surroundings – the couch, the fishtank, even the walls – all faded from view.  It was as though the shattered world was melting away.

"Pretty neat, huh?   All the power of a commercial grade projector but small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.  Or at least that's what the Elcor salesman told me.  _With poorly concealed enthusiasm_ , of course," Kasumi added in an approximation of Elcor speech.

Out of the darkness, what must have been a million tiny lights swirled into being, briefly taking the form of a galaxy of stars, rotating slowly together like the ship's galactic map, before coalescing and morphing into a piano keyboard.  She blinked at the unexpected transformation before reaching out, surprised by just how solid the keys felt.  The sound was perfect too.  "This must have cost a fortune."  Projectors of this quality were the domain of governments and galaxy-wide mega-corps like the company responsible for the Arena on the Citadel.

Kasumi only grinned as she stood up.  "Could've bought fifty greyboxes for what this thing cost.  Anyway, have fun," she said before silently disappearing into the void.

Liara sat there in stunned silence for a long moment before her hands went to the familiar keys.  One-hundred and nine years old, and there was only one song she knew how to play.   Each note seemed to hang in the air, just like that night on the Citadel, and after only a few bars, the piano dissolved back into those tiny points of light before swirling around and morphing into a jungle clearing. 

The brightness of it all surprised her, as did the sound of crashing waves and the cries of seagulls.  None of that prepared her for the sight of Shepard standing before her dressed in her workout uniform of a white tank-top and shorts, hands clasped together behind her back.  “Hey, Liara,” she said, with roughly the same degree of self-consciousness she would expect her to have after being brought back from the dead for a second time.

Liara bolted upright, but no, this wasn’t really Shepard.  Clenching her fists, she shut her eyes and fought back the sudden urge to cry or sigh or scream.

Just a hologram.  Even from several feet away she could make out the tiny flaws in the three-dimensional rendering of Shepard’s form.  From the missing scars on her cheek to the misplaced the freckles on her shoulder, Liara was far too familiar with Shepard's body to be so easily fooled.

Of course, the hologram didn’t notice any of that, just continued with that little half-smile Shepard tended to wear whenever they were together.  At least it was advanced enough to keep its eyes fixed on Liara’s own.  And one thing it did get perfectly right was Shepard’s voice.  “I’ve never made one of these before,” she began, looking down at her hands.  “In a way it feels like I’m expecting to die.” 

Liara calmed herself as the vision looked away for a moment, appearing to admire the trees surrounding them.  She understood.  This was a holographic memory.  Something to hold on to, like what Kasumi had with Keiji.  Something, perhaps, to torture herself with for the rest of her life.

“Never really worried about that before,” Shepard continued.  “Always thought that if I died it would be while fighting alongside my crew, or protecting Earth, or some other worthy cause…”  She shrugged.  “Like any good marine, I suppose.  Can’t get much nobler than returning to Earth at the head of a massive fleet to kick some Reaper ass.”

Shepard chuckled before her tone grew serious again.  “Don’t really have a family either.  Never knew my parents.  Got shipped around a lot as a kid from place to place before they sent me to the mainland.  Ran with a gang for a few years before I finally got some sense knocked into me and joined the Alliance.  Anderson’s the closest thing I ever had to family to be honest.  Of course, you probably know all this already,” she added with a knowing smirk.

Liara knew more of Shepard's background than the woman probably expected.  She hadn't dug too deeply though.  Learning everything on her own would've diminished the pleasure of hearing it all from Shepard's lips one day.  She tried not to think about how she’d never get the chance now.

“I used to only worry about the mission, and my crew.  Never gave much thought about next week, let alone next year.”  Their eyes met again.  “Meeting you changed all that though.  Now I find myself thinking about the future, about what lies ahead for us.”

"It must've been that night we spent in my apartment, before the party, when it was just the two of us.”  With a slight wave of her hand the scene changed, and there they were, or rather, another holographic Shepard was looking on at a holographic Liara playing the very same tune she had played a moment ago.  Her guide looked on them, smiling.  “Everything was so peaceful - as peaceful as it ever gets on the Citadel, I mean.  You played that beautiful song.  I stood next to you, thinking about how this might be a tiny glimpse of a life we could have together one day."

Their doppelgangers embraced each other as the music continued to play.  “I didn’t want to ruin the mood that night, but I was reminded of an old song from Earth I'd heard once; one about a human woman who falls in love with an elf.” 

The hologram raised her hand again and the two of them were now floating high above the Earth; Earth as it had been before the invasion, a world of deep blues and greens speckled with white clouds.  Liara's geography was spotty, but it looked as though they were passing over the island of Great Britain.

Last time she'd seen it, half the island had been on fire.

Still was, for all she knew.

“It's an old English song.  The elf tells her that the only way they can be together is if she performs a series of increasingly impossible tasks.  It reminds me of us…”  She smirked, “With you as the beautiful, ageless elf, of course.”

Liara blushed, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what an elf was supposed to look like.

A second later, she saw herself back on the surface, astride a stone pillar, blowing on a horn of all things.  Shepard was kneeling before her, dressed in a heavy overcoat and woolen trousers of all things, a piece of fine cloth clutched in her right hand.  An ethereal quality hung in the air.  The sounds of the horn were truly enchanting.  "The tasks probably don't seem so impossible these days: fashion a shirt without stitching, then wash it in a well where water never ran."  She smiled as Liara blew her song, a very familiar one.  "But plenty of things are still impossible these days, despite how far we've come."  

The pine forest morphed back into a jungle clearing.  “In order to be with you, I had to defeat Saren and Sovereign, then just a month later the Collectors showed up, and with their defeat came the Reapers."  She sighed.   "Doesn’t get much more impossible than that.   At least -”  Shepard looked Liara in the eyes again and her smile was so true to life that she wanted to cry at the sight of it.  “I hope not."

Shepard shrugged, rolling those strong arms of hers.   "Not that I'd mind.  You know I’d move Heaven and Earth for a single moment with you when it's all over.”

“But, I guess…” she sighed.  “I guess if you’re watching this, then it didn’t turn out that way.”

Liara rubbed at her eyes.

“I’m sorry.  You made me promise that I’d never put you through this again.  But... I was selfish.  Even back on Illium, when we were racing against time, I never expected my life would get as tough as it has.  And when I understood how I felt about you, I wanted to grab hold of that single thread of a happy life and hold onto it forever."

"Shepard..."

"I’ve lost people before, good friends and shipmates, but never someone I loved as deeply as I love you.  I can't imagine what you must've gone through, what you must be going through now.  I hope you can forgive me.  I just… I want you know, that these last few weeks, they’ve been hard – the hardest of my life - but you being here on the Normandy helped me get through it all.”

She couldn’t stop herself, and Liara ran into those waiting arms.  “ _Shepard_.”  Arms wrapped tightly around her body, but there was no warmth there, no familiar scent.  It was all an illusion, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

Shepard continued, rubbing her shoulder in small circles just as the real Shepard had done many times before.  “It’s not much, but I wanted to leave something of me for you, just in case…”  The holographic Shepard raised her hand and Liara lifted her eyes as the scene changed. 

They stood now at the top of the steps leading to what appeared to be a museum.  When she turned around, the towering skyline of a vast human city stretched out before them.

Gleaming towers, immaculate streets lined with vibrant trees all leading down to dark blue sea.  A city completely untouched by war.  She had almost forgotten what one looked like.

“Come on,” she said, drawing away, yet finding Liara’s hand.  “Follow me.”

…

Liara lay on Shepard’s bed, curled up on her side and only half paying attention to the tiny projected map of the Solar system emanating shakily from her omni-tool. 

With the reactor now operational, Samantha was able to channel control of the ship’s comm-systems to Shepard’s cabin.  It gave Liara the ability to concentrate on her task without the constant noise of hammering and welding echoing throughout the rest of the ship.

The rain was a different matter.  True, the gash could probably be covered with a tarp, if indeed tarps were standard equipment on Alliance starships, but Liara thought it hardly worth the effort.

Everyone who knew anything about the Normandy’s systems had much more important things to do.

So did she, for that matter.

Besides, Liara was beginning to like the rain.  The thought of utter silence and stillness unnerved her, too much like those lonely nights in her office back on Illium.  It had been so long since those digs on distant worlds, when it really was just her and the elements.  She missed those simple times.

The rain reminded her that they had won, and life would continue on.

The world had not ended.

Hands covered her face as she choked back another sob.  Too much time had been spent crying last night.  Too much time already wasted.

The world had not ended…

The one thing Shepard had wanted most of all, she had made a reality.  The Reapers were gone, and Liara still lived.

“Commander?”

She uncovered her eyes to find Specialist Traynor lingering at the top of the stairs.  She blinked.  Samantha looked as bad as Liara felt, bags under her eyes, hair disheveled, her stained uniform frayed and partially unbuttoned. 

Liara had known, of course, had known about Samantha’s interest in Shepard since the first time they’d met.  Asari had a sense about these things, and, well, one hardly needed to be an asari to see that Shepard attracted people.

It was only natural, she supposed.  Shepard was an amazing woman.  She couldn’t possibly hold anything against Specialist Traynor for seeing that.

And jealousy was unnecessary.  She knew better than anyone where Shepard’s interests lay.

Liara pushed herself up, but didn’t get off the bed, gesturing at Samantha to take a seat on the chair furthest from the rain which still fell, though gently now, from the hole in the hull.  “I’ve been focusing my search on the Presidium ring.”  Or she had been, before the most recent attack of despair had hit her.  Still, the Presidium was the most logical place to look.  No one knew exactly where the Reaper’s beam had taken Shepard, but the heart of the Citadel seemed the most likely place.

Samantha nodded, scrolling through her datapad with quick swipes of her finger.  “Most alliance suits are programmed with a generic transponder.  Back in the 70’s, the transponders used to identify individuals by name and rank, but the Batarians…”

She trailed off, and Liara nodded in understanding.  The Batarians took great joy in selling off human soldiers into slavery, but even worse horrors awaited anyone of significant rank.  Liara coughed.  “I’ve been scanning for signals, and so far I've found one-hundred and seventeen that match standard Alliance distress codes."  And hundreds of turian, asari, and quarian signals as well, she added mentally.   "But the Citadel is on the other side of the planet."  All she ever had were a few short minutes when the station passed overhead, punctuated by at least an hour's worth of painful silence.

The specialist’s eyes brightened.  “That’s what I came to tell you.  I’ve found a way to interface with some of the comm-buoys our forces dropped during the assault.”  She leaned closer, taking the liberty of tapping a few commands on Liara’s omni-tool.  In seconds, her map was updated with thousands, maybe tens of thousands of signals.

Any one of them could be Shepard.

There was nothing else to say.  Straightening, Liara activated her auditory implant and quickly returned to work. 

Samantha watched her for a moment, but did not do the same.  Instead she leaned over the table where Shepard’s holo-emitter was still sitting.  Without the lock engaged, it was a simple matter for her to begin fiddling with its controls with the help of her own omni-tool.

“How on Earth did you get one of these?”

Signal one-one-eight.  Human.  Suit functioning.  No identification.  One target down, twenty-thousand to go.  Liara didn't look up from her work.  “It belonged to Shepard, actually.”

“She must've been loaded to afford this.”

Liara frowned.  Discussing the origins of the holo-emitter was the last thing on her mind right now.  A voice came through when she focused on the next signal.  Quarian, she was fairly sure.  Not a suit transponder, but a lifepod's.  Liara tagged it and was about to move on when the black box suddenly shone to life again and the room began to darken.

Samantha looked around at the twisted metal and sagging wires tumbling down from the hole in the ceiling and smiled as they melted away.  “Sometimes it helps to have a change of perspective.”

As the room vanished, Liara found herself lifted weightlessly from the bed as though the Earth’s gravity had been switched off.  The blue hue of the fish tank melted into the bright blue seas of Earth, the broken glass and shattered ceiling and floor glinting in the last gasps of light and transforming into stars.  The unfamiliar constellations that a young Commander Shepard had spent many a sleepless night watching now casting their feeble light on the planet Earth below.

“Samantha?”

“I’m here,” her disembodied voice replied.  More points of light appeared, all orbiting slowly around the planet and Liara recognized them for what they were: each and every signal she had seen from her omni-tool.

It was just her and the task before her.

“Don’t let anything distract you.  Just… find her.  I know you can.”

Liara let out a deep breath and allowed her eyes to close.  Soon she lost any sort of sense that this was in a simulation at all.  When they opened again she was truly floating in the void of space, and that was Earth and the great green and brown arc of southern Africa lying beneath her.

Signals surrounded her, dotting the skies, and then gradually, she realized she couldn’t just see them, but she could hear them too.

"-fficer Makar of the Havincaw.   The Captain and Fir-"

A different voice, "Mayday, mayday.  This is the SSV Al-Jalat.  We require immedia-"

People.  Actual living people.  And on top of that a million different beeps and tones of a thousand different suits, ships, and unmanned probes.  She’d need to filter out any signal that couldn’t be Shepard.  “Glyph, begin scanning for any signals that mention Shepard by name.  Begin at sector zero.”

At her command, the planet turned on its axis until the ruined Citadel came into sight, its wards tumbling end over end in the distance.

It was the best place to start.

…

Every broadcast had been tagged, and still there was no sign of her.

All that was left were the innumerable automated transponders dotting the sky in every direction.  Beacons from starships, escape pods, and individual spacesuits orbiting the planet in all directions.  Some were reentering the atmosphere at that very moment.  She tried not to think about it.

All she could do was close her eyes and listen.

Minutes became hours as each signal she spotted was logged and plotted as it traveled quickly across the sky, but there was no way to tell one human signal from another.  No way to tell if the people inside those suits were alive or dead.

So quiet.

Everything was so quiet.

Even light-years away from a system, the comms would always be jammed with traffic from the mundane speculations about rising grain prices to the secret encrypted transmissions that took up so much of Liara's time.

Now there were just a few signals, fading in and out of existence so quickly that she barely had time to scan them.  And hardly anything at all from the surface.

With everything else filtered, all Liara could hear was a chorus of rhythmic beeping, always in the key of C.

Each one a suit with an Alliance transponder.

A number of them were clustered around the remains of a ship, but it wasn't Shepard.  Glyph logged it and added the location to the Normandy's emergency transmission.  Hopefully the ship’s transmitter would be repaired soon.

Hopefully, there was someone out there who could rescue them all.

A barely audible tone, then another, and another.  More transponders, dozens, maybe hundreds.  It took her a moment to realize how much time had already elapsed.  The Citadel was passing overhead again, and the signals were getting louder, making themselves more easily heard over the background static, now even more amplified thanks to Samantha's connections.

Liara rubbed her temple.

Every species had a different emergency transponder.  Humans used a series of beeps, all in middle C.  Old Morse code for distress.  Turian beacons were much more shrill, not unlike their speech.  The Hanar were almost song-like, sustained notes that rose and fell like the seas of their homeworld.

Finally, one by the one, the last signals were catalogued and silences, all signals filtered out and every possible human source investigated as thoroughly as she could from several hundred miles away.  She counted over a thousand, and no way to tell one suit from another, no way to tell if the people inside them were alive or dead.

No way to tell if one of them was Commander Shepard.

They’d have to fly from suit to suit and check each one, and time was running out.  Some of the people in those suits would run out of oxygen, or reenter the atmosphere before they even got started.  And yes, she thought, as a bright flare lit up over the deserts of Namibia, some already were.

And then there was the Citadel itself.  Could they really go hopping from person to person when there just might be thousands still living in the Citadel itself?

Possibly save one woman, or possibly save a thousand…

Liara floated in place, close enough to still make out the dark torus of the Presidium blocking the distant stars.  What should she do?  What could she do?

Silence was her answer.  She didn't cry.  She merely shut her eyes and breathed a few shuddering breaths before feeling she was composed enough to try speaking.  “Anything?” she asked.

Just a soft, “No,” was all Samantha said.

There was nothing.  Not an unmarked signal to be heard in any direction.  Just the quiet hiss of background radiation.

It brought back fears that should've been banished from her mind the instant the Reapers disintegrated.  A dead universe where the machines had won.  Complete silence for fifty-thousand light-years in every direction.   The homes of every great civilization - Thessia, Palavan, Earth - nothing but windswept ruins.

“Play them all again,” Liara said.

Samantha did as she was asked, bringing to life all the transmissions the ship could pick up.  “Narrow the search to within fifty kilometers of the Citadel.”

That cut out much of the noise, but her ears were still filled with a hundred tones playing their sequences simultaneously, some loudly, some on the very edge of hearing.  Liara allowed her mind and body to relax.  There had be something she was missing.

Shepard was wearing her suit when she ran into that beam…

The dissonant tones became almost a song of their own as Liara lost herself among them.

Another barely-there tone, the same as the others appeared, unmarked, but so weak against the background static.

She fiddled with the dials on her omni-tool, attempting to clear it up, but it was gone.  Another soldier who had fought for their people, likely just as hard as Shepard had, now dead with probably no family to remember them. 

Then another signal, just as weak as the last.

Middle C.

Liara blinked.  The sustained note stood out from the ones that surrounded her.

Again, the tone sounded in her ear.  Middle C.

"Samantha?  What is that?"

“A signal Glyph tagged about two hours ago.  Possibly of Hanar origin.  There’s an unusually large mass effect signal being emitted.”

“How is that a Hanar signal?”

“Hanar don’t use suits the way we do.  They incase their bodies in warp-shells.  The emergency beacon is unusual for them, being so similar to an Alliance signal, but there’s very little information on what a Hanar emergency beacon is supposed to sound like, so –“

“Filter out everything but that signal.”

Still, all she heard was that repeating tone, just on the cusp of fading into nothingness.  The Hanar had very few warships of their own, preferring to let their allies do the fighting for them.  Only two Hanar warships had massed with the fleet before the Battle for Earth.

Very odd that she’d find a survivor in all this chaos.

A few more taps had the signal listed as unclassified.  There were several ships of exotic origin in Shepard's fleet on which intelligence was lacking: Elcor, Volus - maybe the signal was one of theirs.

Still, Hanar seemed the most likely.  There was something hypnotic and ethereal about the notes and how slowly they chimed.  Hardly like a distress signal at all.

What was it they said?  ' _Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, and the hungry never starve_.'

Black spots flittered at the edge of her vision.  Goddess, she could sleep forever.  What better proof that Liara wasn't really dead?

She amplified the signal as much as she could.  There was more here, something just peeking out above the static.

More notes, overlapping the sustained note.

C.  F.  G.  A strangely familiar ascending string.  Then: F.  E.  D.  C.  A-sharp.

Liara jerked up as the notes descended, sending her body tumbling and making herself dizzy with the sudden movement.

Her blue eyes were wide with shock as the projector's light continued to shine, highlighting a small region of space roughly fifteen kilometers from the Presidium.

"Doctor?" Samantha asked, suddenly concerned.  Her hand slapped over the emitter, and the projected image dissolved, returning both women to the real world.  Liara took no notice of her, leaping over the table on her way to the door.

…

“We’re going up?”

“If you can get us there.”

The bridge had become a hive of activity after Liara barged in and told them the news.  It _had_ to be Shepard up there.  That was her song she’d heard.

“I can get you there,” Joker replied easily enough.  He gestured at his heads-up display.  Half the screens were red and listing errors that even Liara couldn’t begin to comprehend.  “I’m missing a few things though.  Might need someone to read the backup monitors for me.”

“I think I can manage that,” Cortez offered, taking a seat in the seldom used flight engineer’s chair.

Joker looked over his shoulder, frowning when Cortez pressed a button and it buzzed at him.  “Fine.  But if you break anything, you buy it.”

Jack’s voice came in through the intercom.  “Yeah, yeah,” she was saying to someone unseen, “I’m fucking _telling_ them, all right?”

Liara tapped the comm-panel to clear up the signal a little bit.  “Jack?”

“Oh, hey, Blue.  Adams says this piece of shit will be ready to fly in less than eight hours.”

The Chief Engineer cut in, “That’s not exact –“

Liara interrupted, “I _know_ where Shepard is.”

_That_ shut them both up.

“Shit.”

“You found a signal?” Garrus asked, hobbling towards the bridge with his makeshift cane.  His face was crossed with yet more scars.  He was fortunate that most Turians liked that sort of thing.  “She’s alive?”

Liara refused to allow herself quite that much hope.  “I... I think so.”

“Well, that’s always been good enough for me,” Garrus said with a nod.  “When do we leave?”

Everyone focused on an exhausted looking Commander Williams.  As the highest ranking Alliance soldier on board, and a Spectre, she was in command, presuming things like military regulations still meant anything with the galaxy half-destroyed and all.  Her reaction was surprisingly muted and she didn't so much as uncross her arms.  “You wanna get out and push, or should I?”

Tali cut in before Garrus could get another word out.  “We can fly right now," she corrected.  "It’s just… Well, it’s not exactly going to be pretty.”

Ashley straightened, looking up at the tiny speaker embedded in the ceiling.  “What does that mean?”

“Nothing’s calibrated.  Gravity dampeners are spotty, the main engines will stall if the power drops below seventeen megawatts, but the radiators will fail if it rises above twenty.”

Joker gritted his teeth.  “I can do it.”

“If you can’t, we’re gonna drop like a brick," Adams chimed in, "or explode, or be roasted to a delicious golden brown.  Take your pick.”

Everyone's head turned when Jack came dashing up from the CiC, forcing Garrus to throw himself against the bulkhead to get out of her way.  Liara had no idea how she had gotten up here so quickly.

"Let's… fucking… _go_!" she demanded, out of breath.

Ashley appeared completely unaffected by Jack’s excitement.  Her eyes met Liara’s.  “She’s really up there?”

All Liara could manage was a nod.   No matter how bleak the outlook.  She couldn't let this tiny thread slip away.  Not after coming so far...

Sighing, Commander Williams rested a hand firmly on the pilot's chair.

"Yeah, yeah," Joker muttered as the displays around him began to light up, his fingers flying every which way.

Jack was fidgeting with excitement as the Normandy remained motionless.  A latent biotic field crackled around her.  Liara took a step back.  If Joker didn’t get a move on, Jack was going to lift the ship into the air herself.  "Fuck.  I wish Shepard had left us just one more Reaper so I could personally kick its ass."

“Yeah,” Joker drawled as the ship powered up with a shudder that knocked Liara against the wall.  “Jack speaks for herself on that one.”

* * *

September 26th, 2186

SSV Normandy, in low-Earth orbit over the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

...

"Hear anything?" Ashley asked.

Samantha shook her head, still visibly uncomfortable being in EDI’s former seat.  "I have locks on debris that might be what we're looking for, but I can't hear a thing.”

Liara nodded, wringing her hands together.  Despite the damage, the Presidium ring was still recognizable, even illuminated only by the light of the sun as it now was.   Sparks and flames were streaming from holes on the lowest floors.  The whole structure was still rotating, providing some semblance of gravity to any one fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to still be inside.  "Cortez, is the shuttle ready?"

The answer was came through over the ship's comm, static rising then easing again as the ship maneuvered through the sky.  "I think so.  I wouldn't try flying to Neptune in it, but it should hold out for a few hours."

Jack and Kasumi were standing a not particularly discreet distance behind her, eyes darting from displays to the ship’s forward window.

Liara tapped at the floor nervously.  After the Normandy had returned to orbit, she had hoped to hear those notes again, but the antenna was picking up little of use.  Maybe Shepard’s suit had stopped transmitting to conserve power, or more likely interference from the ship's patchwork electrical systems, all now running at full power, was masking the signal as it masked everything else.

Either way, she wasn't about to send the Normandy after one person, no matter how important...

“Look,” Traynor said, pointing to the far end of the Presidium.  “A flare!”

Liara didn’t even have time to get a glimpse before Samantha pointed to another one.

“I’m getting distress signals.  They’re very weak, but I’m counting at least six different sources up ahead.  They’re concentrated around the docking bays.”

Survivors.  Liara didn’t think it was truly possible.  Ten days under Reaper control, yet after all they had done, all the people they had butchered, there were still people alive in there.

“They must be able to see us,” Cortez said, growing excited.

“Any sign of the Commander?” Joker asked.

Liara shook her head.  Finally, at this close range she was picking up Alliance suit beacons, but try as she might, she couldn't hear that music again.

"Give us her last known location, and I'll begin a search pattern."

“No,” Liara said firmly, and everyone turned their heads, surprised at her outburst.  “There isn’t time."

It was surreal to see Jack look so distressed.  “Why isn’t her suit broadcasting?  What does that mean?"

“If the suit was damaged, it would drain its power reserves keeping its forcefields intact," Cortez explained.  “Otherwise the person inside would be exposed to the vacuum of space.  That means shutting down all non-crucial systems.  Defensive fields, communications, everything in order of priority.  It’s all secondary to keeping to person inside alive."

Jack glowered at the window.  Searching for a black spacesuit in the blackness of space while surrounded by charred debris… was this one of those impossible tasks Shepard had mentioned?  "How the fuck do we find her then?"

Liara glanced down the long hallway to the CiC.   “I’ve got an idea.”

…

Cortez sounded only marginally more convinced over her headset than he had been when she’d first explained the plan to him.  “You sure about this, Doctor?”

“I’ll be okay.  I’ve flown one of these before.”  Okay, flown wasn’t exactly the right word.  She had been a passenger on an escape pod as it had tumbled through space.  That escape pod had also belonged to the Normandy.  The SR-1.  This time though, she was _not_ going to leave Shepard behind no matter what.

Neither the pod, nor the shuttle, were equipped to scan for energy signatures, so Glyph did it for her as they traveled from point to point.   A battery, a shard of metal still hot from a reaper strike, bits and pieces of unrecognizable debris.  Judging by their orbit and speed, they had all come from the Citadel.

Shepard was out here somewhere.

But Glyph wasn't sensing anything.

Without a word, she rotated her field of view, bringing the the two connected ships closer to the Presidium, and turning it a full one-hundred and eighty degrees until all she could see was the blue waters of the Atlantic.

She trained her eyes on those distant seas, searching for holes, black voids where the planet should be.

Finally, Liara saw a speck of black suspended against the endless blue of one of Earth's oceans.  Using her omni-tool to scan and enlarge what she was seeing, her heart leapt when it appeared to be an combat suit

“Okay, release the pod and get back there.”

“Roger,” Cortez said.  The pod shook as the shuttle’s clamps let go and Liara watched as Cortez made a U-turn in the sky.  “And when you get her, tell her drinks are on me… for the rest of her life.”

Liara watched with a rapidly beating heart as the black speck grew closer and closer.  When she was within five-hundred feet she did as Cortez instructed and cut her forward velocity, easing the unwieldy craft to a stop just meters away from her target, now out of sight beyond the hull.

Quickly, she donned her helmet and almost forgot to depressurize the pod before opening the hatch.  With a little bit of practice, Liara got the hang of her suit’s maneuvering thrusters and gently pulled herself out  and into the blackness of space.

In only a few seconds, she had her arms wrapped around the woman.  A touch was all it took to confirm it.   Commander Shepard, eyes shut but still breathing.

“Shepard!” Liara cried, shaking her body and causing them both to begin performing a slow roll through the sky, but there was no response.  She scanned the woman’s suit with her omni-tool. The exterior had taken a lot of damage, and it was crossed with dark patches generated by the suit’s self-healing systems.  The main and backup comm-links appeared to be fried, but all the critical life-support systems were still operational.  A flickering blue light covered much of her lower torso.  That explained the mass effect signature.  The suit was using a great deal of power just keeping itself sealed.

Finally, the Commander’s eyes blinked open, then went wide with recognition.  In the vacuum of space, Liara couldn’t hear her words, but she knew what Shepard was trying to say.

She placed a hand on the woman’s scarred helmet and let her eyes go black.  The pod, the floating debris, everything, melted away until there was nothing but the two of them among a sea of stars.  ‘ _Shepard._ ’

_‘Liara?’_

Through their mental link, she could hear the woman perfectly.  The ache in Shepard’s limbs, the twisted ankle, the dryness in her throat, all became her own.  She needed medi-gel, she needed food, and she needed a thousand hours of bedrest, but she wasn’t going to die. 

A hundred jumbled memories flashed through Shepard’s mind.  Memories of the Prothean beacon.  Liara saw herself, bruised and bloodied against the overturned mako.  She saw Anderson being shot by the Illusive Man.  She saw the Catalyst and the choice Shepard was forced to make: control or destroy, or do nothing at all.  She saw the explosion that followed.  She saw the last person Shepard thought of before unconsciousness overtook her.

Even in her thoughts, Shepard sounded utterly exhausted, ‘ _Liara.  I’m so sorry_.’

She swallowed nervously, feeling the blood pumping through Shepard's veins.  She was alive.  She wasn't going to die.  ‘ _What for?_ ’

‘ _I made a promise that I would always come back.  I… almost didn’t keep it this time_.’

Liara smiled and more visions passed between them.  Liara shared her memories since London and allowed her lover to feel her loss, her despair, the way her pulse raced when she discovered that Shepard might somehow still be alive despite it all.

A gloved hand grazed the side of her helmet. _‘You found me.’_

_‘I’d travel across the universe for a thousand years to find you.’_

Shepard smiled.  An image appeared in their shared mind: Liara as an avenging Asari goddess, coming from the sky to rescue her from her fate.  Liara blushed.  Again with the mythological imagery.  ‘ _You’re the goddess here, I think._ ’  Looking over her shoulder, she pointed out the Earth - the blue and white sphere looming large over everything.   Long trails of smoke marred its surface, but there wasn’t a single fire to be seen.  _‘The Reapers are gone.  Thanks to you.’_

Shepard wasn’t looking at all that.  She staring directly at her, completely speechless. 

The moment was broken by Joker’s voice over her headset.  “Doctor?  Did you find the Commander?”

“Yes, Jeff.  She’s here.  And… she’s alive.”

There was silence over the comm-link for a long moment.  “No shit?”

She laughed.  “No shit.”

Loud cheering erupted over the line, earning an embarrassed smile from Shepard. 

“Tell her I’m going to fucking _kill_ her for disappearing on us.”

“Jack says hi,” Joker added.

Laughter filled the comm-link.

Shepard started to ask for a status report before appearing to remember that the only reason she could even hear the Normandy’s crew right now was because her mind was joined with Liara’s.  Instead, she sighed.

‘ _Something you want to say to them_?’ Liara asked, smirking.

She shook her head.  ‘ _Just tell them… thanks_.’

Liara did so.

Ashley was the next one she was able to make out over all the chatter, “You two need a lift?”

Behind Shepard, the Earth was only growing larger, and just above the horizon was the presidium, still rotating slowly end over end.  From this distance it was just possible to distinguish the blue glow of the Normandy’s engines from the flickering lights and flames shooting from the Citadel itself.  “No,” Liara finally said.  “Save who you can.  I’ll get her home.”

“Cortez picked up a few survivors from Huerta Memorial.  We’re passing docking bay Delta right now.  Looks like we’ve got some more on the lower levels.”

“Do what you can for them, Ashley.  I’ll take care of Shepard.”

Joker laughed sharply.  “Yeah, yeah.  Want the Commander all to yourself.  We get it.” 

She rolled her eyes when Shepard actually winked at her.  _‘Come on,’_ Liara said through her link.  _‘We need to get you out of here.’_

Beckoning Shepard to cling to her, Liara maneuvered them both carefully back towards the waiting pod.

* * *

September 27th, 2186

Escape Pod A7, 20km south of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka.

...

Liara took a deep breath of the fresh air wafting in from the open hatch.  She had never felt so exhausted.  It was like she had been running on pure adrenaline for the last six months, and well, that probably wasn’t far off the mark.

For the first time in what might very well have been years, she had the freedom to completely relax.  To breathe without an apocalypse looming over them all.

The gentle scraping of leaves against the outer hull of the escape-pod brought to mind the many hours she’d spent investigating artifacts on far-flung worlds.  She had loved the quiet in those days.  The slow and methodical pace of archaeological exploration.  The natural world outside providing the only link between her and the creatures she was studying.

Now she wondered if her life would ever be like that again.

Did she even want that life anymore?

Glyph shimmered into view before her.  "Doctor, you have an incoming message."

She stretched her arms over her head.  "Put it through."

The VI dissolved back out of existence and a familiar voice spoke to her over the pod’s comm-link, “We just got your message, Doctor T'Soni.  How is she?”

Liara looked over her shoulder.  Shepard was resting on a blanket Liara had laid over the bench, stripped of her suit and helmet, and looking as untroubled as she had seen her in two years.  “She’s fine… on the outside at least.”

Admiral Hackett sighed, “I understand.”

“Can I ask what the situation is?”

There was a pause and Liara thought she heard the man let out another deep breath.  Admiral Hackett allowing his fatigue to show would be enough to prove to anyone that the war was truly over.

“We lost about seventy-percent of our force, and there’s hardly a ship in the fleet that hasn’t sustained some form of significant damage, even the ships that fell back to Alpha Centauri after the Crucible was activated.”  He paused.  “The Presidium Ring reentered over the Pacific about four hours ago, but we’re still pulling people off the rest of the Citadel.  We’re estimating roughly sixty-thousand survivors in total.”

A tiny fraction of the population, yet it was more than Liara could have ever hoped for.  “What about Earth?”

“It’s bad down there, Doctor.  There’s no other way to put it.  Some cities were barely touched, others – Xi’an, Manila, New York – they’re all but unrecognizable.  We’ve got tens of millions of wounded, and billions in need of reliable sources of food and water.”

Liara swallowed.  There was still so much more to do.  “Only a few of my teams survived the assault, Admiral, but whatever resources I have left, they’re yours.”

“Thank you.  They’ve done exemplary work so far.  The Hammer forces on the Southwark line owe their lives to them.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

There was a pause.  “I wish we had some news from Thessia for you.”

“It’s all right.”  It wasn’t - not really – but she took comfort in knowing that the Reapers were gone now.  Rebuilding would be hard, but Thessia had far greater resources to draw upon than Earth did.  She could do infinitely more good here.

“The scouting party we sent to the Charon Relay tell us that it’s likely going to take years to repair it.  We’re not even sure where to start, to be honest.”

“I see.”  At least she was on this side of the relay, with Shepard.  And many of the scientists who built the Crucible were still on the base at Castor.  In time, she was sure the relay could be repaired.

Another pause.  “If you like, we could have a shuttle pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

“It’s okay," Liara quickly answered.  "I’m sure it could be put to better use elsewhere.”

The Admiral coughed, or maybe he laughed, it was hard to tell.   He probably didn't get much practice at the latter.  “True enough.  Besides, I believe the two of you have just earned a lifetime of shore-leave.”

She smiled.  It was hard to imagine Shepard allowing herself to rest for so long, but at least this time Liara would be right beside her no matter what happened next.  “Well, maybe someday."  _'But probably not_.’

"Hmm, perhaps when the cleanup is over…” Hackett sighed and didn't finish his thought.  “Anyway, I do have one last order for you, Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“When she’s back on her feet, I want you to remind Shepard that every human... every asari, every turian, every _person_ she sees from this day forward is alive because of what she did up there.  She’s a goddamn hero.  Don’t let her forget it.”

Liara smiled.  Shepard would hate it.  She’d have to remind her every day.  “I promise.”

“Good.  I’ll see you both in a few days.  Hackett out.”

Breathing deeply, Liara slumped back on the bench and shut her eyes.  A hero.  Shepard had been that since the first time they’d met.  It was nice of the rest of the universe to finally catch on to the fact.

After looking over her shoulder one last time to check on Shepard, Liara fell asleep without really meaning to, waking up a few hours later to find the evening sun streaming through the hatch and into an empty cabin.  Immediately, she sat up and her eyes went black on reflex.  _‘Shepard?’_

She felt more than heard Shepard’s quiet reply.  “Out here.”

Liara pulled herself through to the hatch and found Shepard leaning against the hull, looking out over rough, forested hills, and the dark clouds beyond.  “Sorry,” Liara murmured, sitting down close to her.  “I should ask permission before reaching out with my mind like that.”

Shepard immediately rested her head on Liara’s shoulder, as she had done so often back on the Normandy.  “You don’t have to ask.  Not with me.”

Her arm threaded its way around Shepard’s back.  In the light of day, it was easy to make out the dozens of scars marring the woman’s skin below her shorts.  Asari skin wasn’t like that at all.  Unless the damage was genetic, every wound Liara had picked up in this war would eventually fade with time.  It was something that gave the asari their ageless quality, and another thing that made humans seem so fragile in comparison.

Of course, Shepard was anything but fragile.  She was a survivor.  Not even an army of Reapers could stop her.

Every scar was a memory, and a lesson, Shepard had once told her.  Sometimes, when they were alone together, Liara would pick one out as ask about its story, and over the past few weeks she had learned the origins of a number of them.

Several were from Akuze, where the thresher maw massacred her entire unit.  A jagged scar marred her ankle from the time they boarded a derelict freighter only to be attacked by an army of husks, and a few tiny ones dotted her face from the incomplete job Cerberus had done bringing her back to life.

Scars of all shapes and sizes, but not a single one was ugly to Liara.

And now there were fresh ones.  A brand new scar ran down her left leg from when she had narrowly missed being incinerated by Harbinger.  Tiny circular spots, probably from flecks of molten metal, lay speckled alongside it.  Thankfully, Shepard’s suit had still been able to seal itself after taking so much damage.  That was not entirely down to luck.  Liara had spent a considerable amount of credits on upgrades to that suit, some of which she hadn’t even told the Commander about.

That might make a good story one day, perhaps something to share with those little blue children Shepard liked to talk about.

Her lover hummed.  It was humid outside the pod, and quite a bit warmer than humans generally liked.  Sweat beaded on the woman’s exposed skin, but she seemed relaxed, and happier than Liara could ever remember her being.  “I’d forgotten how nice non-recirculated air could smell.”

So much devastation… yet this place, wherever this was, was wild and serene.  Not a hint of smoke or rubble blotted the horizon, but dark clouds continued to gather in the west.

She felt Shepard tense when a flash of light appeared in the distance, followed a few seconds later by a gentle roll of thunder.  Liara squeezed her side in an attempt to be reassuring and Shepard let out a deep breath, before finally relaxing again.

“I missed the rain too,” she said, sniffing the air approvingly.  “Almost forgot what it was like.”

“Did it rain a lot where you grew up?”  She wouldn’t have known that Liara had already seen the contents of her black box.

She nodded.  “I grew up in a lot of places.  I remember when I lived in Honolulu, I used to sit on the roof of my apartment block letting the rain wash over me while I thought about things.”

“Really?  What kind of things?”

Shepard smiled a little.  “The future, mostly.  It was only ten years after first contact.  The possibilities seemed so vast.  I thought about going to space.  Stepping foot on alien worlds.  Making love to beautiful alien princesses,” she added, earning a light shove from Liara.

“Two out of three’s not so bad.”

Shepard kissed her.  “You’re much more desirable than any princess.”

Heat rose to her cheeks.  “Flatterer.”

“It's true.  Without your research, we would’ve failed years ago, and the knowledge of the Crucible might’ve been lost forever.  It's not an exaggeration to say you've saved trillions of lives.”

She shrugged.  There would be time enough later to contemplate the magnitude of what she had done.

Years and decades and centuries, she hoped.

“I plan on telling those little blue children all about what a hero you are.”

Liara laughed.  "It sounds like these children are going to grow up with an awfully inflated view of their parents.  Who will teach them humility?”

“They can watch us dance,” Shepard said, laughs turning into coughs.  “That’ll show them that we’re not perfect.”

"Ha.  Speak for yourself."

Shepard tensed again when Glyph suddenly flew over her heads, trailing a shower of holographic sparks behind it.  When it reached the nearby line of trees, it flew into the air, shooting up twenty meters before returning and settling back in their field of view.   Just when Liara thought it was over, it performed a flip in the air before resuming its silent hovering.

“Um, Glyph?”

Its eye began to glow brightly, and a moment later a life-sized hologram of a familiar cloaked figure stood before them.

“Kasumi…” Shepard said, eyes narrowing.

What Liara was seeing should've been impossible.  The hologram took a bow.  “How did you –“

She grinned playfully.  “How do you think?”

"How long have you been spying on us?” Liara asked.

“Oh, only since you woke up.”

“You’ve been watching us all this time?” Shepard asked.

“Yep,” Kasumi said, her smile never disappearing.

“And how much do I have to pay you to keep you from spreading this all over the extranet?”

Kasumi crossed her arms.  “Oh, please.  There’s no extranet anymore anyways.  This is for my personal collection.”

“ _Personal_ collection?”

“Yeah.  I can’t resist a good romantic story.  You know, like the torrid love-affair between Miranda and Jack, for instance.”

“I’m still not sure if you’re joking about Miranda and Jack,” Shepard sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

Kasumi only grinned in reply.

“So…” the Commander finally said after a long moment.

“So, I wanted to see how you two were doing.”

“Uh huh.”

“Everyone seems a lot happier now that you’re back, Shep.”

She nodded, her cheeks growing ever so slightly pinker.  “Thanks.  Where are you anyway?”

“Um,” Kasumi looked away at what Liara assumed was an unseen monitor.  “Southern France, I think.  Dropping off survivors from a quarian dreadnought.  I hope they like crepes.”

“I don’t think they can squeeze crepes through their induction ports.  If the relay is as bad as they say, we’re going to have to come up with some way to feed them.  The turians too.”

Kasumi looked directly at Liara.  “She’s already planning her next move.  See what you're getting into?”

Liara smiled.  “I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the Alliance appointed you as Interim President or something.”

“Screw that,” Kasumi said.  “They’ll probably make you Queen of the Entire Universe for this.”

Shepard shook her head.  "So," she drawled, expression turning serious.  “I heard you blew a hole in my ship.”

Kasumi grimaced.  Until that moment, Liara hadn’t thought it possible for the thief to make such a face.  “It’s hard to dock with a ship that has no power.  Besides, it was Jack’s fault... _mostly_.”

Shepard appeared unconvinced.  “Uh huh.”

“Well, um, I mean, she really took to the idea once I brought it up.”

“Uh huh.  Next time, just use the airlock by the CiC.  It opens manually from the outside.”

She pouted.  Evidently, the thought had not occurred to her.  “Noted, my Queen.  I’d buy you a new shuttlebay door, but Alliance credits aren’t worth so much these days.”

“Then as my first act as Queen of the Universe, I declare ‘cute cat pictures’ to be our new form of currency.”

Kasumi cheered, “I’m set for life!”  She turned again to look at something off-screen.  “Oh.  Looks like we’re due to make another run up to the Citadel.”

“How is it up there?” Shepard asked.

“It’s…" her smile faltered, "pretty awful actually, but there are survivors.”

“Need any help?”

Kasumi shook her head.  “We’ve got plenty of hands, just not enough ships.”

Shepard nodded.  Liara could feel the tension building in her limbs, like she wanted to go regardless, but the Commander eventually settled.

“While you’re in Sri Lanka, might I recommend visiting scenic Yapahuwa?”

“Yapahuwa? Shepard repeated.

"It's said to have once held the sacred tooth of Buddha.  One day they'll probably have temples like that, housing parts of you."

She frowned.  "Uh... no thanks."

"A shrine to the Holy Right Fist of Shepard.  The one that knocked that one guy clean off the tower in Illium,” she punched the air for emphasis.  "Like, ka- _POW_."

Shepard couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.  It was the man’s reward for trying to literally get the drop on her.  Liara remembered seeing it all in the security footage, watching with admiration as Shepard worked her way up the tower, looking for the Drell assassin.  Then, just as abruptly, Shepard’s mind appeared to fixate on something else.

Liara frowned, gently brushing her hand through her bondmate’s hair again.  She had taken the fate of an entire galaxy on her shoulders, and now here she was, already wondering what the future held in store.

Eyes turning black, Liara saw the thoughts running through Shepard's mind.  Body parts of the Buddha.  How would he have felt about that?  What would any of the leaders of the galaxy’s great religions think of the ways people kept their memories alive? 

Savior of the galaxy or not, such questions were well above Shepard’s pay grade.  All she knew was she didn't like the idea of being seen as more than what she truly was.

Liara let her own thoughts push Shepard’s dark ones away.

She conjured up a mental image of an asari temple, dark, candle-lit walls reflecting the bright blue candles held aloft by a group of priestesses, delicate white robes shifting in the breeze.  Shepard blinked as Liara pulled her through the circle of women.  There, in the center of the hall stood an enormous stone statue.

It was a statue of Shepard’s butt.

Green eyes snapped to hers and she laughed incredulously.  Eyes turning wicked, a different image came just as quickly to mind, dozens of humans laying offerings of incense and candles before a statue of a blurry standing figure.  Liara shook her head when it resolved itself.  Surely, her breasts weren’t _that_ big.

Shepard grinned as Liara’s cheeks flushed purple.

“Ok, wow,” Kasumi broke in as both women returned somewhat reluctantly to the real world.  “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone then.  See you in a few.  Remember, drinks are on me.  I’ve got plenty of cat pictures to spend.”

The hologram faded and Glyph shook as if it was trying to clear its processors.  “I’m sorry, Doctor.  It appears my security locks have been compromised.”

Liara allowed the mental link to slip fully away.  “It’s ok, Glyph.  Kasumi’s a…” she looked at Shepard.  “Friend?”

Shepard nodded.

“Understood.  Shall I grant her access to your files?”

“ _No_ ,” she said a little too forcefully.  “I, uh, mean, not at this moment, Glyph.”

“Very well, Doctor.”  And with that the VI returned to the pod.

Shepard rolled over, resting her head in Liara’s lap, looking up into her bondmate’s bright blue eyes and breaking into a smile.

Liara smiled back.  “Comfortable?”

“Very.”

She returned to stroking the woman’s head.

Shepard sighed.  “Seems you still have a thing for hair.”

Liara smiled.  “I have a thing for you.”

“Mmm,” she drawled, stretching her arms and arching her back to get more comfortable.  “That’s not a bad line.”

“I’ve been meaning to use it for a while now.”

She hummed in contentment.  “So what do we do now?”

“Now as in _right now_ , or now as in _from now on_?”

Shepard closed her eyes.  “The second one.”

“Whatever we do, we should do it together.”

She hummed in agreement as another roll of thunder sounded.  “That’s an even better line.”

Liara narrowed her eyes and flicked Shepard gently on the temple.

“Aww.  I can’t make you blush like I used to, can I?”

She shrugged.  “I’ve seen a lot these past three years.”

Shepard nodded, a little sadly, Liara thought.  “Feels kind of like waking up from a bad dream, doesn’t it?”

“Well, not all of the dreams were bad,” Liara corrected, smiling again.  “I remember a few wonderful nights mixed in there.”

Shepard’s lip quirked.  “Yeah, me too.”

Again, the thunder rolled.  Sheets of rain could be seen falling not too far away now.  The wind was already picking up.  Shepard sighed, but gave no hint of moving even when fat drops of water began to pepper them both.  “Do you want to head back inside?”

“No.”  Shepard sighed as the droplets splashed upon her skin.  “Let it rain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry, it took so incredibly long to finish. This was an aptly named fic if ever there was one.
> 
> Also, I'm pretty sure I lifted the cute cat pictures as currency idea from xkcd ^-^


End file.
